While aliens may one day look upon contemporary Top 40—chock full of Meghan Trainor, Charlie Puth, and Iggy Azalea—and shed a tear for our puzzling tastes and frail intellect, the genre also remains one of our most exciting modes of expression. What else can deliver catharsis in three minutes of pitch-corrected bliss?

Indeed, this dichotomy—pop music as a space for both the divine and the inane—has been ever present in the first half of 2016, six months that have played host to both the glorious highs of Lemonade, and the endless befuddlement that is Desiigner’s “Panda.”

Lucky for us, the first half of 2016 has been one of pop music’s best periods this century. From Bey to Bowie, Drake to Rihanna, the stars came to slay, delivering a cavalcade of quality, thoughtful, and forward-thinking music. They also released and performed their wares in ways that have been equally breathtaking. Or equally irritating, depending on your patience for self-aggrandizing, non-surprise surprise superstar releases.

So, let’s take a spin through the defining elements—the high-end and the low-brow—of pop music so far this year.

A Nice, Tall Glass of Lemonade, Straight to the Face

Who else could make you stay home on a Saturday night just to watch their album? Who else could make you watch their album in the first place? Indeed, as she did three years ago with her paradigm-shifting self-titled album, Beyoncé made the world stop again in April with her second visual album, Lemonade. This time, though, she did so by baring her soul.

Lemonade showed Beyoncé at her most daring, her most boundless, and her most raw. If you’d told me during the “Single Ladies” days that one day we’d see Bey, resplendent in heavenly underboob, chucking her wedding ring at the camera while screaming, “you gon’ lose your wife!” as Jack White moaned in the background, I would have laughed heartily in your face.

Lemonade, though, busted Bey’s tightly held private life wide open. The film wasn’t only a feat of engineering and a rare visual accompaniment that actually enriches the music—the most 2016 thing about it was that Beyoncé didn’t need a hit single or brand tie-in to make her point or move records. All she needed was heavy dose of truth, and some fiery twerking from Serena Williams.

Bowie’s Last Great Surprise

On the heartbreaking side of things, the first six months of 2016 has seen more than its fair share of untimely pop passings. We lost Natalie Cole on New Year’s Day and Prince in April. But before he passed, David Bowie pulled out one last astounding trick: he released his gorgeous final album, Blackstar, on his last full day on earth back in January. It was a final triumph from one of pop’s greatest magicians, one last splash from his seemingly bottomless well of divine powers.

Kanye’s Garden Party

2016 has proved firmly what we’ve known all along: no one will ever love Kanye as much as Kanye loves Kanye.

In February, Kanye proved his self-love in the most Kanye way imaginable: He debuted his Yeezy Season 3 collection along with his seventh studio album, The Life Of Pablo, in an intimate gathering at darling midtown speakeasy, Madison Square Garden. Rosie O’Donnell, 2 Chainz, Jay Z, and every Kardashian imaginable were on hand as Kanye stood mid-arena floor with his laptop, proudly broadcasting the album’s hymnal opening track “Ultralight Beam” right next to his most tasteful musing about the future of his and Taylor Swift’s friendship.

Love him or hate him and say what you will about Pablo—one of Kanye’s most divisive releases—but you can’t say ‘Ye ever makes it easy to look away. You certainly can’t look away from his recently released “Famous” video, featuring nude likenesses of everyone from Bill Cosby to Swift, his ex Amber Rose and his mother-in-law, Caitlyn Jenner snuggled up in a king-sized bed. In typical Kanye fashion, not knowing quite what to make of the whole shebang must be the point.

Panda (Panda, Panda, Panda, Panda, Panda, Panda….)

Speaking of novelty hip-hop hits: “Panda” represents one of the most exciting things about pop in 2016. One day, you’re a struggling rapper, posting Future-lite singles on YouTube about a car that resembles an endangered bear; the next, you’ve got a number-one hit and a Kanye co-sign.

The less exciting thing about “Panda?” Well, pretty much everything else about “Panda.”

Rihanna: esteemed Album Artist

Rihanna is perhaps the ultimate singles artists of our time: just this week, she slow-whined her way to the Top 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the 21st time.

But Anti, her eighth album, revealed an entirely different Rih’ than we were used to when it dropped in February: an inward-looking, ambitious album artist. Anti finds our most irreverent pop star exploring the prison of her fame, the internal conflicts of her love life, covering Tame Impala and, on album highlight “Higher,” showing us what an extremely lit, 4 a.m. booty call from Rihanna sounds like. (Spoiler alert: it sounds absolutely transcendent.)

By digging into herself, Rihanna came up with her most relatable iteration to date and made a serious case for her longevity. True to form, she managed to toss off yet another number-one single almost by accident, with the barely there, elegantly garbled dance-hall hit, “Work.”

The Incessant Reign of Champagne Papi

Drake’s dominance as pop overlord continues unabated in this first half of 2016. His latest album, Views, has spent its first eight weeks in the penthouse of the Billboard 200 while its lead single, “One Dance,” is currently enjoying its sixth week at number one.

That Views is Drake’s weakest long-form matters not. This is 2016, after all. By touching on everything from dance-hall to drill, Bond-ian strings, U.K. Funky House and of course, ceaseless meditations on his interminable woes, Drake’s voice remains, in all its self-reflective multitudes, the definition of our present zeitgeist.

The Softer Side of E.D.M.

Electronic dance music, a fever dream we’ve tried to forget, has made a mini-comeback this year with hits like the Chainsmokers’s “Don’t Let Me Down,” Calvin Harris and Rihanna’s “This Is What You Came For,” and Mike Posner’s “I Took A Pill In Ibiza (Seeb Remix).” Luckily for those of us who couldn’t take one more drop after the years 2009 to 2014, this is a silkier, more self-aware take on the polarizing genre. Posner’s song in particular is charming in its emotional availability and goofiness, fully cognizant of its tardy Big Tent leanings. As the lyrics attest, he only took the party drug so that now-retired E.D.M. poster child Avicii (and affirmed teetotaler) would like him.

Justin Timberlake Invites You to Visit the Buffet

When did Justin Timberlake transition from our most savvy and sexy male pop star to a puddle of melted vanilla ice cream? Sometime around “Suit and Tie,” I think. But his latest smash, “Can’t Stop The Feeling”— a song genetically engineered to offend the fewest people at your second cousin Laura’s wedding—dropped in May and completed the cycle.

Sia Owns Coachella

While Sia’s face-obscuring act seemed to be wearing thin during the ramp-up to her seventh album, This Is Acting, her set at Coachella in April reminded everybody why she is one of pop’s most seasoned and evocative creators. Somewhere between a concert, a dance performance, and a performance art installation, Sia’s voice soared, solidifying that—with pop music, at least—you don’t have to show your eyes to grab hold of people’s hearts.

Killing Our Demons, Iggy and Macklemore

While the first half of 2016 will forever be remembered as that one time we let a horrifying white person gain far too much power and possibly threaten humanity, it’s also when we collectively excised two others. Both Iggy Azalea and Macklemore, two artists who rose to fame, and then infamy, by doing an awkward impression of rap music, dropped follow-ups this year—and were told, very starkly, “We’re good, thanks.” To the extent that pop music reflects our culture back onto us, this is a great sign for our collective wokeness in 2016.

D.J. Khaled’s Snapchat Superstardom

Here I was, certain that his 2007 hit “We Takin’ Over” was D.J. Khaled’s most valuable contribution—the apex of his not-sure-exactly-what-he-does brand of fame mongering. I could never have guessed that an app running 10-second videos that disappear after you watch them would emerge as Khaled’s most fitting medium and the foundation for his excellent comeback single, the Drake-featuring, Too Short-cribbing “For Free.” And yet, here we are.

But that’s the first half 2016 for you: you can Snapchat your way right onto center stage at a Beyoncé concert. Now that’s a Major Key.